Equilibrium curing: salt and cure by weight

Equilibrium curing replaces guesswork with a scale. You weigh the meat, work out the salt and the cure as percentages of that weight, and seal them in together. All of the salt ends up in the meat, so it cannot turn out saltier than the number you chose.

Nitrite is toxic in excess. Weigh cure on a scale that reads to 0.1 g, keep it labelled and apart from table salt, and check the limit where you live before you start.

The sums

Salt. Meat weight times the salt percentage. The examples in Fermento's calculator are 2.5% salt and 1% sugar for bacon, 3% and 0.5% for pancetta, and 2% and 1% for duck breast.

Cure #1. Cure #1 is salt with 6.25% sodium nitrite. The grams you need are the meat weight times the target in ppm, divided by 1,000,000, times 16. At 156 ppm that is 2.5 g per kilogram, or 0.25%.

Cure #2. Cure #2 also contains sodium nitrate, which turns into nitrite slowly, so it is used for long dry cures such as salami. Fermento's calculator uses 0.25% of the meat weight.

The limits to check first

The numbers above are the common United States figures. They are not legal everywhere.

• United States. The federal rule, 9 CFR 424.21(c), allows a quarter ounce of sodium nitrite per 100 lb of chopped meat, which is 156 ppm, and no more than 200 ppm of nitrite in the finished product.
• Great Britain, the EU, Australia and New Zealand. The limits on added nitrite are lower, and 0.25% of cure can exceed them. Look up the current figure before you copy a US recipe.

If you sell what you cure, the rules go further than the dose. In the United States the FDA Food Code treats curing as a special process that needs a variance and a HACCP plan in a retail kitchen.

Drying and weight loss

A dry cure is weighed at the start and again as it hangs. The target weight is the starting weight less the loss you are drying to: 1 kg at 35% loss is 650 g. The ranges in Fermento's calculator are 25 to 30% for pancetta, 30 to 35% for salami and 35 to 40% for bresaola.

Weight loss tells you about texture and says little about safety. For cured meat that is sold, guidance works from salt, nitrite and measured water activity, which is why producers follow a validated process.

What to log

• The meat weight, and the salt, sugar and cure you weighed.
• The date it was sealed and the date it was hung.
• The weight at each check, and the loss so far.
• The temperature and humidity of the chamber.

In Fermento

A cure is a batch with its own timeline. The salt and cure you weighed are saved with it, each weigh-in goes on the timeline, and reminders tell you when to check it. See charcuterie in Fermento and the curing salt calculator.

Updated 11 November 2026.